


Spook

by Xparrot



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Humor, Post - Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-23
Updated: 2007-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred & George, post-Deathly Hallows. A silly little (re)solution to one bit of the ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spook

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Deathly Hallows; written the day after I read it. I'm not more than a passing fan, for which I think I'm grateful; if I'd been more into the series this finale might've broken me. Thus this silly ficlet, a (re)solution to one thing that bothered me.

George had been slinging so many spells that he was sure he was going to lose his voice. Over the shouts and curses exploding around him, he couldn't hear himself, so didn't know how hoarse he really was, but his aching throat was sure to give out sooner or later.

Which was why he was so startled to hear his own voice in his ear, saying his name quite clearly—only it wasn't his voice, of course; it was Fred's, though it sounded peculiar, more like his own than usual, like it was coming from inside instead of outside.

"Fred?" he asked, between spitting incantations, and turned to see where his brother was. They had gotten separated a while back, leading gaggles of students off in different directions. He had rather hoped that Fred was faring better than he; he couldn't likely be faring much worse, back to the wall and his gaggle scattered and Death Eater prats on all sides.

"Over here," Fred said, but when George looked there was no one, unless your definition of 'someone' included a giant smoky, greasy ball of entangled jinxes, which was wriggling like a sack full of goldfish. The soon-to-be-patented Weasley Web of Witching Wrangling, designed to guard against the poxes and jinxes that might rebound on an innocent purveyor of practical jokes (as had occasioned to happen to Fred and George, proving even masters were not immune), was working better than expected in its trial run. It wasn't nearly as elegant as a Shield Charm, but it did the trick.

"Where?" George shouted over the din, blinking back the blinding aftereffects of an _Infernus_ spell close enough to have singed his ear, if he'd still had one. Small favors and all that rot. He gestured with his wand and the Wrangling Web expanded again, enough to blot out most of the passage to his left. The Death Eaters to his right were all on the floor, stunned. He hoped stunned, anyway; given the firepower flying around, it might be worse, but he didn't want to check.

The corridor was dark with smoke, with the spellfire behind the web. George peered around. "Fred?"

"Right here...umm."

Fred's voice, still weirdly clear to his hearing, trailed off. "Fred?" George shouted, turning completely round in an effort to make him out through the smoke and dimness.

"Er, George? I. Er. Think I might be. Er. Dead."

"What the bloody hell do you mean—"

"I mean, I can see through my fingers. And my hand. And my arm."

"Fred, where are you?"

"Here—I'm right here, George."

Out of the corner of his eye, George saw a blink of movement, like someone waving to get his attention, but when he turned there was only a blank and scorched stone wall.

"Behind the wall?"

"Er, more in the wall, I think—George, look out!" Fred's voice went high with alarm. Then something crashed into George, like a cold blast of wind, with enough force to knock him to the floor.

He looked up to see a flash of green light pass right overhead, in the space where his head had just been. The Web, not designed to handle an assault of Killing Curses, warped and rippled around the rent in its oily surface.

Then the tear closed up, puckering as if something were holding it together. George blinked and rubbed his eyes. There was something holding it together, an obscure, misty shape as tall as he was to the inch, so dim and shadowed that only the bright red hair showed any color..."Fred?"

His twin's sheepish grin shone through the indistinct nature of his present features. "I was with Harry and Ron and Percy, and Percy had almost made something that in a different dimension might nearly count as a joke, and then—_bang_."

"Bang?"

"Might've been _boom_, now that I think about it."

"Boom."

"And then I'm here with you. Not a shadow of my former self. More of a bubble, don't you think?" he said, gesturing with one transparent hand that shimmered like a soap bubble, the other still occupied with holding closed the web.

George eyed his brother speculatively. "Or that nifty Muggle stuff Dad brought back, whatsit, those clear garbage bags."

"You're saying I oughta be taken out with the trash?"

"Or ice, maybe."

"How cold!"

"That twat Ridgetoddle who laid you out in the fifth year for that bit with the newts in his pants, he said you had a glass jaw, but this is ridiculous."

"George?" Fred's ghostly figure said, sounding strained.

"Yeah?"

"I don't think I can hold this thing much longer, so you'd better get out of here."

"What about you?"

"Don't think you really have to worry about me anymore, old sport."

George stared at his twin hard, what he could see of him.

"Move it!" Fred said, then grinned again. "I'll be right behind you."

George hesitated. "You swear?"

"Cross my heart. Or what-have-you. Just got something I want to try, first."

George felt spectrally cold fingers brush his pocket, pulling something from his robes. He glanced down at the specially prepared popcap, then nodded understanding to his brother and took off down the corridor, vaulting over prostrate Death Eaters. Behind him he heard the distinctive shriek as the web's delicate spell tore wider and then fell apart. The Death Eaters' muffled voices suddenly got much louder.

Then, louder still over them, came a crack and a wild howl. "BOO!"

George looked back over his shoulder as he rounded the corner, and caught a glimpse of a great phantom shape filling the corridor, something like a wolf, something like a octopus, everything like a nightmare. He recognized it, of course; they'd been trying to perfect the ghost-enhancing Fright Bites for years.

It wouldn't last more than a second or two, but he heard the Death Eaters wail quite acceptably as they reeled back in instinctive terror from the apparition. Another set of satisfied customers, courtesy of Weasley Wheezes.

He heard footsteps beside him, a light floating step echoing the pounding of his boots on the floor, turned his head enough to see the shade of his twin beside him.

"That did it," Fred said, sounding as out of breath as George, even if he no longer had any working lungs. "Needs a bit of practice, but..."

"Fair sight better than we've managed before," George agreed. "Come on, we better hurry, or else we'll miss seeing Harry take down old Voldy-smores."

"If he hasn't already. Hadn't found him yet, last I was with him, but..." Fred sighed lunglessly as he kept pace with George. "The thing of it is," he mused, "I don't remember exactly what happened. Can't remember what I said. What if my last words were no good? It's not like I'm going to get a second chance!"

"You bloody wanker," George growled, angling a glare at his twin, "going off and dying on me."

"Look on the bright side," Fred said, "we won't need to go catching spirits to test the Fright Bites on anymore."

True, capturing poltergeists was a pain at the best of times, given their vast array of tricks and powers; they could de- and re-materialize faster than the quickest-Apparating wizard, as well as float and pass through walls and levitate things invisibly and...George stopped in his tracks, struck by the full realization, even in the face of all the chaos around him. "Fred."

Fred stopped beside him. "Yup?"

"You're dead."

"'Fraid so. Sorry about that."

"You're a ghost."

"Looks like."

He met his brother's eyes, a translucent mirror of his living being, but their identical grins were as ever indistinguishable, as were their voices, speaking as one.

"This is going to be _brilliant_!"


End file.
